Monopoly

The classic board game gets the mobile treatment, courtesy of iFone.

The venerable board game Monopoly seems like a perfect fit for handsets -- and to a great extent, it is. Almost everybody old enough to be walking around with a game-capable phone undoubtedly has more than a passing familiarity with the game and how to play it. So, right there, there's no learning curve to overcome -- making this game instantly accessible. The version of Monopoly that puiblisher iFone has pushed on to American handsets (I DL'd the game on a LG VX8000) is an excellent recreation of the classic Americana board game. Everything is included -- the traditional board and player icons, the property names, the railroads, the hotels? you name it and it's in here.Getting into the game is remarkable easy. The menu system is simple and intuitive, so rolling the dice, buying properties, competing in auctions, and managing your cash flow is no problem. The developer smartly opted to not give a bird's eye view of the entire board during individual turns, but rather just concentrate on the property and surrounding squares that each player occupies. It almost looks like a game board was scanned in and used, the text and color scheme is so dead-on.There are three game modes in Monopoly. The regular game is just that, a traditional run at the board. There is a quick game that concludes when one of two competing players bankrupts. Finally, there is a timed game where you are challenged to amass the biggest fortune before the clock runs out. Up to eight people can play with a single handset, and if you wish, you can play with seven other computer-controlled opponents.Which brings me to what irritated me about Monopoly. Those damn computer opponents. Now, I don?t necessarily consider myself an expert Monopoly players, but I do have a couple decades of experience with the game. I don?t suck. But I was pretty much steamrolled right out of the gate by the computer opponents. How lucky was it that the computer was able to squat on Broadway and Park Place within the first few turns? Meanwhile, I'm sucking hind teat with Baltic and Mediterranean. When you normally play Monopoly, it takes at least an hour to send one of the players in bankruptcy, but I found myself on the brink sooner than that. With the computer making instiable land grabs, I was left mortgaging properties over and over to pay garish rents.